Longwood, FL – December 2017… With its goal of seeking, engaging, and encouraging others through a life-changing Christian journey, First Baptist Sweetwater is a church with a wide range of ministries and related programs designed to help its members find a meaningful worship experience. In an effort to make services more appealing, church management recently elected to upgrade their sanctuary with projection technology drawn from the catalog of Rancho Santa Margarita, CA-based Eiki International, Inc.

Creative Sound & Lighting Solutions of Cape Coral, FL, an AV installation company primarily focused on the House of Worship market, but also providing services for entertainment venues and other commercial markets, was contracted to handle the deployment of the church’s new projectors. Rob Robinson, Creative Sounds’ co-owner, discussed the project and his reasons for selecting two Eiki EK-510U 7,000 ANSI Lumens, WUXGA, 3 LCD projectors.

“First Baptist Sweetwater’s services are a unique blend of both traditional and contemporary,” Robinson reports. “During services, the church uses both a traditional choir and orchestra, yet services lean toward the contemporary. The sanctuary is like an amphitheater in that it is narrower at the stage and expands outward. In terms of dimensions, the area is 50 feet across at the stage and it opens to roughly 150 feet across the back of the room. The space seats 1,300 people and includes a balcony.”

“We selected the Eiki EK-510U projectors because of their bright, vivid imagery and their ability to accept both analog and digital video input in all color standards up to 1080p,” Robinson added. “This capability provides a lot of options in terms of input sources that can be used. With their support for HDBaseT and HDMI™ with MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link), these projectors are even capable of displaying HD Video from smartphones and tablets—providing maximum versatility for a wide range of content.”

According to Robinson, both projectors aim content onto opposite walls of the chancel. Robinson and his team also deployed brand new custom sized screens—12 feet wide by 8 feet high—that were made to fit the exact dimension of their wall space. “We got lucky in the fact that the church’s wall dimension was a near perfect 16:10 aspect ratio,” Robinson explained. “The projectors themselves are actually way up high, hidden on the lighting catwalk. What made these projectors perfect for this installation is the way that we were able to lens shift down to the screens from approximately 8 feet above.”

“We spanned some trusses with uni-strut, and mounted some Chief CMA395 angled ceiling plates to the strut so the projectors wouldn’t just be sitting on plywood or something similar,” Robinson added. “As a result, the projectors are actually positioned upside down in the lighting soffit. The setup uses Renewed Vision’s ProPresenter, a lyric and media presentation package built specifically to make high-quality live productions easy for worship services and related applications. Presently, both lyrics and a variety of video content is being projected during services.”

With many installations, questions inevitably arise. For this reason, responsive and capable technical support services are essential. While Robinson states that Eiki’s tech support is first rate, he added the following, “In this case, the parts worked so well together that my normal conversations with Eiki’s Steve Rubery didn’t really need to happen. The entire setup was flawless.”

The First Baptist Sweetwater installation project took place in September 2016—with the equipment placed into service immediately afterward. Since that time, Robinson says his client is very happy. “When I followed up to check on everything, my customer told me the projectors are ‘awesome.’ Since that time, they continue to tell me they are very happy.”